


The Kind of Tired Sleep Can't Cure

by Parker_Haven_Wuornos



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, No one is coping, No threegulls actually happens, Some Seriously Messed Up Coping Methods, Takes place after S3e06, drinking as coping, everyone's just thinking about it, sex as coping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:34:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25949686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parker_Haven_Wuornos/pseuds/Parker_Haven_Wuornos
Summary: Audrey could have gone lots of places for company. She came to him.He knows that if someone asked Nathan to make a list of people he didn’t want Audrey to fuck, Duke would be at the top of it.Audrey knows that too; she’s too smart not to.And she’s here anyway.And Duke likes that.
Relationships: Duke Crocker/Audrey Parker, Implied/Reference Threegulls
Comments: 12
Kudos: 21





	The Kind of Tired Sleep Can't Cure

**Author's Note:**

> Hey so this is a little different from my usual stuff so mind the tags and take care of yourself.Title lyric from Lovers or Liars by Lauren Aquilina.

Audrey has the frayed look of someone who’s just been in a fight. Duke recognizes the look; he’s seen it enough times in the mirror.

It’s so familiar, that worn, beaten look, that Duke steps closer to her, searching her face for bruises in the low light.

She doesn’t say anything. 

It doesn’t surprise him. Neither of them ever really say anything.

None of them say anything.

He wants to make a joke.

He should make a joke, because that’s what he’d normally do and that would make this feel normal, but he doesn’t.

“Is there enough of that to share?” Audrey asks, pointing to the bottle and his half empty glass sitting on the counter.

He nods wordlessly and tops off his own glass before pouring one for her.

When she’s taken a few sips, he says, “What are you doing here?”

It’s not that Audrey doesn’t visit the Rouge like this, randomly, late at night. That in itself is not much of a surprise. But Duke knows that she doesn’t do it unless she needs something, usually help with a trouble.

He doesn’t have that in him right now. He wants her to tell him what she wants so he can say no and she’ll leave.

He wants to wallow, and he wants to do it alone.

Audrey shrugs.

He waits.

Finally, she sighs, giving up first. “I don’t want to be alone.”

His smile tastes bitter and the whiskey tastes worse. He’s everyone’s favorite second choice.

She laughs and it’s the first time he’s ever thought the sound was ugly. “We’re both thinking about him,” She says, “Might as well do it together.”

Duke shakes his head. He wasn’t thinking about him. He was refusing to, actively.

And he was drinking.

Audrey being here was a reminder of what he was trying not to think about.

“So he’s with her,” Duke finally says, and he’s glad when Audrey flinches a little. She’s so smooth, so good at pretending not to be bothered. Her skin is marble painted like porcelain and there’s a part of him that enjoys trying to crack it open and see what’s inside.

“Yeah,” Audrey says, finishing her drink. “He’s with her.”

“How about that.”

She glares and doesn’t bother to ask before reaching for the bottle and pouring herself more. “It’s good,” She tells Duke. “They’re similar.”

Duke snorts. “No they aren’t.”

“He likes her,” Audrey says, a little weak, a little worn, a little wishful.

“No he doesn’t,” Duke says, because he knows.

He knows Nathan Wuornos better than he knows himself and he knows damn well that Nathan and Jordan don’t like each other, and they’re not similar, and they’re bound to crash and burn.

And Duke wonders, secretly, why Nathan would choose to crash and burn with Jordan—a stranger, a newcomer—when he could do it just as easily and twice as well with him or Audrey.

Or him and Audrey.

Speaking of him and Audrey, Duke isn’t sure what’s happening. They’re drinking together; that’s normal enough. They’re talking about Nathan; hardly a first.

But there’s something different about it.

Duke is still spinning from the half second in the house when he and Nathan had been perfectly in sync with one another. For that moment, they’d put their differences aside and worked together, and they’d been spectacular at it. 

Duke lived for those moments in between the enmity. He jumped from one to the next, trying not to get burned by the fire that stretched between them.

He doesn’t know what has Audrey spinning. Whether it was the trouble, the flashbacks, seeing Nathan holding Jordan’s hand.

Part of him wants so badly not to care.

“Why are you here?” It’s not the same question as before. He knows it means something different. She could have brought her misery anywhere.

She put it on his doorstep.

“I pushed him away,” She said. “On purpose.”

Duke snorts hard enough that the whiskey burns the back of his throat. “Obviously.”

Audrey looks away, and he has to reach for her when he sees that her eyes are shining just a bit too bright.

“You regret it?” He asked after a moment.

She shrugs. “It’s for the best.”

“Is it?” He pushes, because he’s damned tired. Tired of the secrets and the lies and the smiles that swallow glass.

“I’m going to disappear,” She says.

He doesn’t want her to remind him how many days she has left. He knows.

Of course he knows.

Duke wants to ask her why she pushes Nathan away and drags him in. He wants to know why Nathan is with some troubled girl he just met and why Audrey is on his boat.

He wants to know why Nathan is worth protecting, when he isn’t.

She is not shoving Duke away to spare his feelings, and Duke wishes he was fine with that. Wishes he was only grateful that she was letting him in.

But he isn’t. He’s angry, he’s bitter and twisted and tired.

“Go home, Audrey,” He says.

She looks surprised.

He feels surprised. He’s never rejected her before.

“I don’t want to,” She says, but she stands up.

Duke stands too. “What do you want?” He asks, just so he knows before she leaves.

She shrugs. “I don’t want to disappear.”

It’s not the answer he’s expecting. He wasn’t sure what answer he was expecting, but that was disarmingly honest, for her.

“I want to go back to before I knew I was going to vanish, and I want to do it all over again.” She steps closer to him.

He doesn’t think she’s leaving, and he doesn’t want her to anymore. “What would you do?” He asks, taking a step towards her.

They’re about to meet in the middle.

“Anything,” She says. “Everything.”

It’s not an answer. She hasn’t really thought about this. Maybe she doesn’t have regrets.

He wants her to have regrets.

“Really?” He asks.

“No,” She answers. “I would apologize,” She says. “To you. You deserve better.”

He laughs. “You’re probably right.”

They both know it doesn’t make a difference.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. About—”

He doesn’t want to hear his name. He doesn’t want to be reminded of the way his hand had felt pressed against that man’s mouth, of the rush of blood and the high that came with it. Duke put his hand over Audrey’s mouth, just to stop the words. She falls silent, her lips whispering against his fingers.

Carefully, and without letting go, she pulls his hand away from her face. “There’s something else I should have done.”

He lets her hold his hand. “What?”

She leans up, so close. Her lips are next to his jaw and he doubts she can reach any further. “I should have done this that night, when you stayed over.”

Duke flushes, burning hotter than the whiskey, and he bends down enough for her to finally close the distance.

She tastes drunk, even if she isn’t acting like it. He likes it, because he wants to feel drunk, and this feels like a strange, secondhand way of getting there.

He puts his hands on her waist, dragging her closer.

He tries very hard not to think of Nathan doing this with Jordan.

He wonders if they’re both trying not to think of that.

Audrey arches into him, kissing him harder, as if she can sense that his mind has wandered and she wants to bring him back.

Eventually, she pulls away, locks her eyes on his. “He’s not here.”

Duke knows that. Nathan’s absence is a physical thing, solid and oily, circling them and forcing them closer.

“He should be,” Duke says, and he’s relieved when Audrey nods.

It’s strange, how powerful that finally-admitted _should_ is. Nathan _should_ be there. It’s unnatural that he’s not.

Duke doesn’t believe in destiny—doesn’t want to—but him, Nathan, and Audrey feel destined. They are supposed to be together and this moment is unstable because Nathan isn’t around to hold up his corner.

Duke doesn’t care. Nathan isn’t here because Nathan doesn’t want to be, because he chose to let Audrey push him away—a choice Duke won’t make, which is why she’s here—and because he wanted to be with the first person who gave him the time of day.

He kisses Audrey, and she melts into him and it’s _good._

He refuses to think it’s missing anything. Because it’s not.

Audrey steps away and pulls her shirt off, and Duke is glad he wasn’t the only one thinking about this. He follows suit and then drags her back.

Part of him wants to laugh at how high school it all is. That they’re hooking up late at night, half-drunk on Halloween, but when he thinks about explaining the joke to Audrey, he realizes it isn’t funny.

So he unhooks her bra and lets it fall to the ground, pulling her back to him so her chest is flush against his, and it’s warm.

And it’s good, actually, that Nathan isn’t there.

Nathan can’t feel. Nathan wouldn’t know how _good_ this was.

And Duke has wanted Audrey for so long. This should be incredible. Why should he care that Nathan wasn’t here? Why should he even want Nathan here when only hours ago Nathan was waving a gun in his face?

Audrey lets out a sigh, breathy and high pitched and it sounds fake to Duke, who kisses her because he’d rather hear nothing than hear bullshit. He’s had enough bullshit from both of them.

He kisses her for a while and then he’s sick of bending over for her, so he lifts her onto the counter. God he’s bent down so much for her, and he never wants to again.

He can’t say that he likes having her look down on him any better.

“Duke,” She whispers against his mouth. “We shouldn’t.”

He pulls away. He doesn’t want to play this game. “Why not?”

“Because—”

“He’s not here, Audrey.” He cuts her off. He’s never cut her off before. “That’s his choice. What’s yours?” 

Audrey drops her eyes and guilt grips him. She’s crying. Audrey never cries.

He made her cry.

“Auds—”

“I’m fine, Duke,” She says, her smile is wet and smooth. Too perfect.

He hates it.

Carefully, he puts his hand on her jaw, tracing the hard line of bone, wiping a tear as it slips past her lashes.

“I thought it would be you,” She whispers. He only barely hears her. “I would have been fine if it was you.”

He laughs. It’s not funny. Nothing about this mess is funny, but he laughs because she’s already crying, and he thinks that fills the quota. “It _was_ you,” He points out, not unkindly.

She nods and ducks her head out of his hands so she can wipe her face. “You think I’m stupid.”

Duke shakes his head. He thinks a lot of things about her, and not all of them are good, but he’s never thought that. He would never think that.

“When it comes to keeping Nathan,” Duke says, almost smiling, “I can’t throw any stones.”

Audrey smiles, and he’s relieved that there is actual humor in it. Finally, they are on calm, familiar waters again. “Do you miss him?”

“Right now?” Duke asks. “Yeah.”

“Me too. I’m sorry he almost shot you.”

Duke shrugs. He’s getting used to that. “He wouldn’t do it.”

He wants to believe that. More than anything, he wants to believe that Nathan is all talk, that each time he points a gun at Duke, he gets further and further from pulling the trigger.

“I would stop him,” Audrey says, and Duke wants to believe that too.

She’s still shirtless. He’s surprised he forgot to notice for so long, but now that things almost feel normal, that they’re at least a familiar kind of charged, he notices again.

She sees him noticing.

“He’s with someone else,” She says. “We don’t have to feel guilty.”

Duke doesn’t feel guilty, so he assumes she’s trying to convince herself. “We don’t.”

“Do you… want to?” She asks.

He smiles, the most real one he’s offered her this whole strange night. “Yes.”

She drops her arms from around her chest and reaches for him, not moving from her seat on the counter.

He moves close enough for her to grab him and she tangles her hands in his hair.

It feels good, her nails digging into his scalp, and he likes having her close like this, likes that he can tilt his head and drag his teeth over the column of her throat. He likes the sound she makes, the low moan and the way she wraps her legs around him.

This is the part Duke understands best. He never knows exactly what’s going on in her head, and he suspects it’s more complicated than he can figure out, but this is easy.

This is lips and skin and teeth and touch and he’s good at it.

And Christ, so is she.

She arches back with a gasp that sounds real. The motion pushes her core against him, and she’s shameless when she grinds on him.

He never thought he’d see her like this. When they’d first met, he’d imagined it. Back then, she was just a hot fed, someone who might be useful or might be trouble, but would be fun in any direction.

Now she was _Audrey._

Now there were some days when she was the entire world.

This was shaping up to be one of those days. His irritation from earlier—the fact that she’d dragged him to a literal haunted house and they’d all nearly died—faded into the background. He just wanted to feel her, wanted the whole world to collapse except for the space they occupied.

If that happened, maybe they’d stop thinking about Nathan.

He wants to let go of this ugly mix of jealousy and longing. He wants Nathan here, he wants Audrey for himself, he wants Nathan to know that he has Audrey grinding against him, writhing on his kitchen counter.

It isn’t fair to her, and he knows it. He doesn’t want to use her to make Nathan jealous. He’s not a kid anymore; he’s over petty games.

But then, Audrey could have gone lots of places for company. She came to him.

He knows that if someone asked Nathan to make a list of people he didn’t want Audrey to fuck, Duke would be at the top of it.

Audrey knows that too, she’s too smart not to.

And she’s here anyway.

And Duke likes that.

He also likes the taste of her skin as he pulls one of her nipples between his teeth. He likes the way her back arches into his touch, and the fact that she tries to hold in her gasps and cries, so he has to listen for the change in her breathing.

“Duke,” She whispers, soft and contrasted with the desperation in the way she grinds against him and pulls his hair.

He circles his tongue one last time before pulling away to look at her. He wonders if she’s going to tell him to stop again.

Mostly he’s just glad she’d said his name, because he knows he isn’t the only person she’s thinking about.

Duke backs away from her, giving her space. He’s surprised when she jumps off the counter and undoes her pants.

Audrey watches him watch her as she pulls them down and kicks them away.

He stares. He wants this moment to mean something. He’s wanted her for so long. So damn long.

But he looks at her, almost completely naked, standing in his galley, soft and flushed and wanting, and he wants more.

He wants to know what Nathan’s hands would look like running over her skin, or how his fingers would look disappearing inside her. He wants to know what faces Audrey would make watching him fuck Nathan.

He was hard already and it’s painful now. He lets her pull off his belt and push his pants down, and he doesn’t wait for her judgement, praise, or condemnation when he’s bare in front of her. He kisses her again, feeling her warm, soft skin against his cock.

_It’s good,_ He tells himself. _It’s enough._

But he’s never been one to stop at half-satisfied.

He lifts her up and pushes her against the nearest wall. It isn’t his favorite position, but he doesn’t want to be too comfortable. Doing this—this fucked up self-flagellation they were helping each other with—in his bed would have been wrong.

It is supposed to be like this, messy and rough and not quite good.

He wishes it was good.

He wishes it was worse.

He wants more from Audrey, wants Nathan there, wants to be alone, doesn’t want to stop, wishes he could leave.

Duke pushes into Audrey and tries to forget how to think. For a moment her bright sigh clears his head, but when she looks him in the eye, all he can do is think.

He pushes back into her, watches those eyes flutter closed, watches her arch and writhe and try to focus. He swears he can tell what she’s thinking, swears up and down that he knows how badly she wants him to be all she wants.

“He’s not here,” Duke says, low and rougher than he wants in her ear.

He thrusts inside her again. “If he was, he’d have his hands all over you. He can feel you; think how intense this would be for him.”

The moan she lets out is jagged and it cuts like glass. He was right. That was what she wanted.

“He’d hold me up,” She says, breath so caught he can hardly understand her.

His grip is slipping, Duke wonders if she’s judging him for it. He keeps his grip on her thighs, stares at his hands wrapped around them.

“He’d hold me up so you wouldn’t have to do so much work, so he could just watch you.”

Duke’s rhythm stutters. He thinks about Nathan watching him. Those intense blue eyes. It hurts.

It burns.

He fucks her harder.

She lets her head drop back against the wall and winces, but her hips thrust forward, as if she’d been seeking the pain, as if it’s part of this for her.

He hates that. Hates that she wants pain.

But he knows they both do, knows that neither of them would be here if they didn’t, on some level, desperately want to hurt right now.

Because they are so close to what they want, and it’s a million miles away.

A week ago, Duke would have thought that either of them actually admitting that they wanted Nathan, much less admitting it to each other, would have been only a breath away from actually getting what they wanted.

A week ago, Nathan hadn’t been holding hands with a black-haired stranger with a trouble that oh-so-perfectly matched his.

Audrey grabs his chin and jerks his head towards her, kissing him roughly, biting his lower lip just hard enough to hurt.

_Good,_ He thinks. “More,” He says.

There’s not much she can do from this position and he knows it. Asking for more when he knows she can’t give him anything else feels like retribution, feels like demanding penance.

He knows, then, that they won’t speak of this again. Neither of them will admit to this, because he knows that when the freezing sun comes up over the horizon, he will think about what he’s doing with her, what he’s doing to her, and hate it.

She is the most incredible thing that’s ever happened to him, but right now, she’s no one at all.

She cannot be Audrey, because if she was Audrey, he’d have taken her to the bed, he’d be holding her carefully, gently, learning all the ways to make her fall apart around him.

If he were fucking Audrey, it would never be rough or perfunctory, or whatever the fuck was happening right now with her pressed against the wall of his fucking kitchen.

She’s shaking. For a breathless second his heart pinches with terror that he’d made her cry again. That he’d missed something.

“Aud—” He cuts off, she’s rolling her hips, eyes closed, her movements tense and uncontrolled.

Oh.

“Duke,” Her voice is high, a whine.

It’s beautiful.

He wishes he could appreciate it.

He tries, when she finally starts to fall apart, to watch closely, to commit this to memory.

Instead he leans in, takes her earlobe between his teeth for a brief, sharp tug, and whispers, “Imagine what he’d think if he could see us right now.”

She breaks at that, and he loses himself too, caught in watching her, caught in thinking about Nathan watching them, caught in thinking about his fury if he knew about this.

He wants to pretend it’s not the fury that tips him over the edge, wants to pretend that the idea of Nathan Wuornos being mad at him, hating him, isn’t what brings his pleasure to a head, but he knows, somewhere past pleasure and pain, that it is.

He wants it to be Nathan’s love, but he’d stopped letting himself fantasize about that a long time ago.

The fury is easier to picture anyway.

They both slide gracelessly to the ground, breathless and shaking. He expects her to pull away as soon as she can, to get dressed and run home to shower him off of her.

She curls close, naked and shaking and tucked under his chin.

He can’t hate her for being here.

He sometimes wants to hate her.

He thinks he wanted to hate her when she’d first arrived.

But it’s a moment to moment thing.

He kisses her carefully, like he should have from the start.

_I’m sorry_ isn’t enough, so he doesn’t say it.

She doesn’t say it either, probably for the same reason.

He’s so good at making excuses for her lack of apologies.

Her face is damp against his chest, and he thinks it might be tears.

“Audrey.”

She moves closer. “Duke.”

He aches. He loves the way she says his name.

He loves…

“I hate him.”

He knows the feeling, not the one she’s saying but the one hidden in her voice, the one that doesn’t believe what she’s saying at all.

“I know,” He says. He doesn’t explain it.

She knows too, he thinks.

He figures eventually it’ll be awkward that they’re naked on the floor, but it’s nice enough for now, and he’s too tired to move to the bed, which no longer feels like untouchable territory.

She’s Audrey again.

He doesn’t feel like Duke yet.

“Duke…”

He wants to when she says his name. He wants to be the person she’s asking for.

He waits for her to say what she’s thinking, but she doesn’t. He has to check to see if she’s fallen asleep, but her eyes are wide and staring.

She must not know what to say, and that makes Duke want to laugh. Audrey Parker, the woman who could solve someone’s deepest pain with one conversation, couldn’t come up with a way across the discussion they need to have.

It’s just as well; he doesn’t know how to survive it anyway.

“If—” She starts, and he knows somehow it’ll be about Nathan.

It always is with her.

It is with him too, but that’s beside the point.

And that’s the entire point.

“He’s not here,” Audrey says, abandoning her _if_ in the cold.

He’s glad. He wants it dead. “No,” Duke says.

They can wish it weren’t true as much as they want, they can both reach orgasm by wishing it weren’t true, but it changed nothing.

Nathan wasn’t here because, by some miracle, he’d found a way to fuck everything up even more than it already was.

And Audrey was here, and Duke was scrambling to pick up her pieces while his flaked off, curling to the ground like ash from a campfire for her to try and sweep together.

“He should have been here,” And he hears the her he knows so well.

She’s still naked, nothing but sweat between the two of them, but her armor is in her voice, and so is her anger.

Anger, he thinks, is so much easier than this vast expanse. Anger is a word, a feeling, a curled fist, a red bloom.

He can define anger. Whatever this is that he’s feeling, that he’s felt since he whispered the first _should_ lacks definition, defies explanation.

He searches for anger in himself and can’t find it. Where had his anger gone? He’s sure he had some.

He must have.

He finds, instead, a joke, the joke that would have made everything easier when she’d first shown up but that he couldn’t say.

“It wouldn’t have been better if he was here.”

It lands flat because despite his attempt at humor, his smile won’t cooperate, and they both know that he’s lying.

It would have been better with Nathan, even if it had been clumsy, confused and awkward, it wouldn’t have been miserable.

It wouldn’t have been empty.

“Can…” Her voice is so quiet he barely hears it, but he can feel her breath on his chest, knows she’s speaking. “Can I stay?”

He tightens his grip, holding her against him, tight enough that he doesn’t think she’d be able to get out if she tried. He’s glad she doesn’t try. He’s not sure he could have let go.

And he thinks about saying no.

He could push her away now. The final blow, a mercy kill for their time bomb of a friendship. She would hate him, her steel anger sharpened against him. He wants to laugh, thinking about how it might be the thing to bring her closer to Nathan.

He hadn’t realized that he was the uncomfortable thing between Nathan and Audrey, just like Nathan was the shadow they were both failing to ignore between them now.

She is waiting for his answer, and he could give it. He could say no and it would be over.

He wishes he wanted to.

“Yes.”

She shivers and he relaxes his grip so he can rub her back in a pretense of offering friction. It doesn’t work, he can see goosebumps on her pale skin, can feel her, still faintly sweaty as she tries to get somehow closer, seeking more heat.

He has no more to give her, so when she shifts enough, he moves her off of him as gently as he can, and stands up.

She follows him, and they silently set about the awkward business of gathering clothes. Some spell is breaking and Duke wishes he could put it back together again.

He carefully tugs his sweater around her shoulders and then turns towards his room, leading the way and hoping she’ll follow him.

She does, shedding the sweater before crawling under the blankets, where he joins her.

It takes them a moment to find a position. Somehow, what had been natural on the cold, hard floor of his galley is strange and fumbling in his bed.

They find it again though. She’s laying on his chest, and her hair is tickling his nose, and he doubts she’s actually all that comfortable.

It’s not exactly like being alone. It’s not quite better.

It isn’t worse.

Neither of them say anything.

They never do.


End file.
